Two Hundred and Sixty-Seven Plants in the Writings of Marcel Proust (1871-1922): A Documentary Interpretation of the Botanical Influences on His Literature

Author:

Morley, Brian Derek

Year:

2012

Pages:

548

ISBN:

0-7734-3068-7978-0-7734-3068-6

Price:

299.95

The most complete scholarly work to study representations of plants in the writings of Marcel Proust. Proust took simple inspiration from the gardens he observed in his daily life. This book takes a different approach because it is based on the author’s fiction and correspondence. It also explains how Proust was a chronic asthmatic, whose passion for plants actually caused him to suffer. Proust used plants as a creative tool, yet they also led to his physical decline.

Reviews

“This book on plants associated with the writings of Marcel Proust is altogether different…it is accessible and amusing at times because that is how Proust would have it.”

-Prof. Stephen D. Hopper,
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

“This is a most impressive work. To the best of my knowledge, no scholar has ever attempted such a detailed analysis of Proust’s botanical imagery, and indeed, none but a botanist could have done so.”

-Ernest M. Wiltshire,
Co-Author: Freedmen of Barbados

“The book amounts to a mental mapping of the ecology of one of the twentieth century’s most fertile minds.”